THE SPORTING SPANIEL. 



283 



and kept up his interest in the breed to the 

 last. He used to say that the golden tinge 

 peculiar to the Rosehill breed came from a 

 bitch which had been mated with a dog be- 

 longing to Dr. Watts, of Battle, and that 

 every now and then what he termed a 

 " sandy " pup would turn up in her litters. 

 Owing to an outbreak of dumb madness in 

 the Rosehill kennels, a very large number 

 of its occupants either died or had to be 

 destroyed, and this no doubt accounted 

 for the extreme scarcity of the breed when 

 several enthusiasts began to revive it 

 about the year 1870. Mr. Saxby and Mr. 

 Marchant are said to have had the same 

 strain as that at Rosehill, and certainly one 

 of the most famous sires who is to be found 

 in most Sussex pedigrees was Buckingham, 

 by Marchant's Rover out of Saxby's Fan. 



In the early days of dog showing the most 

 successful owners and breeders of these 

 Spaniels, besides those already mentioned, 

 were : Mr. Farner, Mr. A. W. Langdale, 

 Mr. T. Burgess, Mr. J. Fletcher, Mr. T. B. 

 Bowers, Dr. J. H. Salter, and Dr. J. H. 

 Spurgin, who all owned and exhibited several 

 very meritorious specimens. 



Mr. Phineas Bullock, too, who owned at 

 the time the strongest show kennel of Field 

 Spaniels, was very successful, particularly 

 with his dog George, who was not, however, 

 by any means a pure Sussex, as both his 

 sire, Bob, and his dam, Nellie, were blacks, 

 and in consequence of a protest from Mr, 

 Bowers he was withdrawn from the show 

 ring, and his name appears in hardly any 

 Sussex pedigrees. Another dog, Bebb, 

 whose name occurs in many pedigrees, both 

 of Sussex and Black Field Spaniels, was also 

 of doubtful origin. He is certainly entered 

 in the Stud Book as a Sussex, but he was 

 got by Old Bob, who was either altogether 

 or half a Water Spaniel, and came from Lord 

 Derby's kennel. However that may be, 

 it was from the union of Buckingham, men- 

 tioned above, and claimed to be pure Rose- 

 hill, with Bebb's daughter Peggie that the 

 great Bachelor resulted — a dog whose name 

 is to be found in almost every latter-day 

 pedigree, though Mr. Campbell Newington's 

 strain, to which has descended the historic 



prefix " Rosehill," contains less of this 

 blood than any other. 



About 1879 Mr. T. Jacobs, of Newton 

 Abbot, up to then, with perhaps the excep- 

 tion of Mr. Phineas Bullock, the most suc- 

 cessful breeder and exhibitor of Field 

 Spaniels, took up this breed ; and, as was 

 his custom with any breed he touched, 

 took it up with great success, owning, 

 amongst other good specimens, Russett, 

 Dolly, Brunette, and Bachelor III., the 

 latter a dog whose services at the stud can- 

 not be estimated too highly. When this 

 kennel was broken up in 1891, the best of 

 the Sussex Spaniels, as well as of the Blacks, 

 were acquired by Mr. Woolland, who had 

 been an exhibitor of the breed for some five 

 or six years previously, and from that date 

 this gentleman's kennel carried all before 

 it until it in turn was broken up and dis- 

 persed in 1905. 



So successful was Mr. Woolland that one 

 may almost say that he beat all other com- 

 petitors off the field, though one of them, 

 Mr. Campbell Newington, of whose kennel I 

 shall speak presently, stuck most gallantly 

 to him all through. The name of Mr. 

 Woolland's famous dogs is legion, but the 

 best of those owning his celebrated prefix, 

 " Bridford," were : Dalhon, Maubert, 

 Battle, Victor, Maud, Naomi, Brida II., 

 Minnie, Giddie, Dolly, Leopold, Queenie, 

 Pierrette, Bredaboy, Mocky, and Daisy. 

 Of these I consider the dog Bridford 

 Giddie (k.c.s.b. 26,957) and the bitch 

 Bridford Dolly to have been the two best 

 Sussex Spaniels I have ever seen, with 

 scarcely a fault which the most hypercritical 

 judge could find, either on the score of 

 type or make and shape. 



Mr. Campbell Newington, who has been 

 breeding Sussex Spaniels for over a quarter 

 of a century with an enthusiasm and 

 tenacity worthy of the warmest admiration, 

 began by buying Laurie and a bitch named 

 D'Arcy from Dr. Williams, of Hayward's 

 Heath. Laurie was considered by Dr. 

 Williams, one of the best authorities of 

 his day, to be the best Sussex he had ever 

 had, and very typical. His next purchase 

 was Lady Rosehill, a very blue-blooded 



